William S. Hart
actor, director, producer
- Birth name:
- William Surrey Hart
- Born:
- 1864-12-06, Newburgh, New York, USA
- Died:
- 1946-06-23, Newhall, California, USA
- Professions:
- actor, director, producer
Biography
Dakota badlands, then Manhattan ink stains—William S. Hart sampled both before stepping onto a stage in 1888. Two seasons later he was swinging a chariot whip as Messala in the first Broadway “Ben-Hur,” and by 1907 the glow of footlights followed him as the laconic foreman in “The Virginian.” A camera caught him for the first time in 1914’s two-reel “His Hour of Manhood,” and within a year Thomas H. Ince lassoed him for Triangle. When Ince jumped to Famous Players-Lasky in 1917, Hart went along and Adolph Zukor paid dearly for the signature. Fame curdled in the early ’20s under the flashbulbs of a paternity suit that ultimately collapsed, but the headlines stuck. He rode out of the business after finishing “Tumbleweeds” for United Artists in 1925, trading applause for the quiet hills of a Newhall ranch while a new breed—Tom Mix, Hoot Gibson—traded virtue for stunts. The Victorian knight who had once epitomized square-jawed honesty rests today in Brooklyn’s Greenwood Cemetery.
